Some years ago an article appeared in the _Topographical Gazette_ from the pen of an eminent archaeologist affirming that Thurswell must originally have been Thor's Well, so that the place dated back to the time of the worship of the Scandinavian god Thor; but while this evidence of its antiquity was received by some of us with enthusiasm--having been a resident in the village for a whole year I was naturally an ardent Thurswellian--it was, when reproduced in the _East Nethershire Weekly_, generally regarded as the invention of some one anxious to give the enemies of the village some ground for their animosity toward it. For the suggestion that it had a heathen origin was not one, it was felt, to which its people could tamely submit. There was some talk of a public meeting to protest against the conclusions come to by the archaeologist, and the Rector was considered in some quarters to be but a half-hearted champion of the Faith when he refused to lend the schoolhouse--sixty people could be crowded into it--for this purpose, his argument that the more heathen Thurswell had been in the past, the more marked should be its display of the Christian virtue of charity in the present, being criticised as savouring of Jesuitry. For months the matter was the leading topic of the neighbourhood, and the Hearts of Oak Habitation of the Ancient Shepherds drew up a resolution protesting in this connection against “archaeology and every form of idolatry.” It was the misprint in the _Gazette_ that changed “Hearts of Oak” into “Heads of Oak” in publishing the proceedings that quenched the violence of the discussion, and now it is considered bad taste to refer to it at all. II.--THE CENTENARIANS